What do we know about who attacked Minnesota, New York and New Jersey?
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Rahami is also suspected of planting a bomb that exploded on the New Jersey shore on Saturday, a device found near the NY blast, and up to six more devices found near the Elizabeth train station on Sunday night.
That evening, a man dressed in a security uniform stabbed eight people in a shopping centre in a town in Minnesota. It appears one was shot, but neither sustained life-threatening injuries. He was shot to death by an off-duty police officer. It happened in St Cloud, 70 miles (110km) from the major city of Minneapolis.
Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, touring the site of Saturday’s blast that injured 29 people in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood, said there did not appear to be any link to worldwide terrorism. It is thought he was Somali-American.
Witnesses described a deafening blast that shattered storefront windows and injured bystanders with shrapnel in the mostly residential neighborhood on the city’s west side. An unexploded pressure-cooker bomb was found blocks away. Investigators say he left another set of explosives in a trash bin by a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey. One of them exploded while being handled by a robot.
Jack Mazza, co-manager of nearby VCMR Truck Services, said the bar owner came over exclaiming about the sleeping man, and Mr Mazza walked over to see a man curled up with a sweatshirt hood pulled over his head in the rain. On Sunday, police detonated a backpack with five bombs that was found outside a restaurant in Elizabeth, N.J. Local media reports say his family ran a restaurant there on the first floor of their home.
“They were a very nice family”, said Devin Sanchez, 20, who said he was a good friend of the suspect’s younger brother.
The wife of NY and New Jersey bombings suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami left the United States a few days before the attacks, a law enforcement official said Tuesday. Both that device and the remnants of that which exploded will be sent to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Virginia, for analysis, authorities said.
Earlier, five people were being questioned by the FBI but none has been charged and the investigation was ongoing.
One New Yorker, Anthony Stanhope, was in his apartment when the blast went off.
Two weekend bombings and two thwarted attacks in NY and New Jersey put Manhattan on high alert as President Barack Obama and other world leaders prepared to gather for the annual United Nations summit.
On Monday night Rahami was charged in New Jersey with five counts of attempted murder of police officers in connection with the shoot-out and federal prosecutors are still considering charges over the bombings. He said he had all licenses required by New Jersey law.
“We will continue to conduct investigative activity to ensure that we completely understand Rahami’s social network”, Sweeney said. But Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., who received a classified briefing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Rahami was not cooperating.
“I’m confident about what the NYPD have out in the streets of New York City today”. He was scheduled to be there on Tuesday to open the UN General Assembly, attended by leaders and delegates from around the world.
The official says two devices found in New York City included pressure cookers, similar to the devices used in the 2013 attack the Boston Marathon that killed three and wounded hundreds of people.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
His comments were echoed by Democratic US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The St. Cloud police chief said the man reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if he or she was Muslim before attacking. He later tweeted: “Best wishes and condolences to all of the families and victims of the awful bombing”. Mohammad Rahami, the father of the suspect, told MSNBC in a short interview that he was not aware of his son planning any bombings and he did not know what to believe.
We don’t know for sure who put the explosive devices in Manhattan and in the two places in New Jersey. “It is certainly leaning more in the direction that this was a specific act of terror”.
That said, it’s possible that they are using a lack of information to spread fear more widely.
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“There’s going to be somebody who’s supporting you, somebody that you met with that you probably discussed this idea with”, he told VOA via Skype. That’s bad for any society and any economy. The Chelsea bombing, coming just days after the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, put the most populous US city on edge.
